Elite no longer get automatic Priority baggage?

I'm Platinum (lifetime) with American, and in late May on a flight I noticed that my luggage didn't have the red "Priority" tags, either coming or going. It was a domestic trip, so I wasn't too concerned. I chalked it up to oversight (both ways).

In June, though, I had a TATL on American, and when I checked my bags I noticed that the counter agent didn't reach for the red tags when he tagged my bags. I was concerned since the continuation was on a OneWorld carrier other than AA, and I wanted to make sure that carrier knew to give my bags priority handling (for what it's worth), so I asked him whether Platinums no longer were given the Priority baggage treatment. His answer really surprised me.

He said the only time they are to put the red "Priority" insert in the tags is when the tag printer prints a big "P" next to the flight list on the part of the tag that is given to the passenger, and the tags for my bags did not have the "P".

Now, the boarding passes that had just printed did clearly show my AA Platinum and OW Sapphire status, and the TSA Precheck and all, so it wasn't that my AAdvantage number or status had somehow failed to register. Yet, priority luggage was apparently now no longer included.

Has anyone else run into this? Is it some sort of error, or is this intentional -- another stealth devaluation of elite status?

I just returned from Ecuador (GYE/MIA and MIA/JFK) and discovered the current value of that red "Priority" tag -- zero, or close to it. My tagged luggage took forever to reach the carousel on both segments -- long after LOTS of un-tagged stuff showed up.

I was joking with my seatmate from OGG at LAX the other night. This time my bags both came down and he was stillw aiting. I think the tags can help but certainly don't always help. Once we were waitign vfor bags and someone counted 40 or 50 bags that came off before the "priority" bags did.

Concerning the comments that the "Priority" tag doesn't always help, that has been my experience as well, but less so recently.

The counter agent I was talking with (who told me about the "P") said that AA was trying to make them mean something by requiring the baggage handlers to process all the Priority bags before sending up the rest of the luggage.

Apparently with the new scanning system, there is a record kept of the order the bags are sent up, so a tag number in the "Priority" class being sent up after regular baggage goes up can be detected. I don't know whether this will work, or for how long, but if AA is serious it could incentivize the baggage handlers to give priority to Priority bags.

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